December 13, 2012 "Information
Clearing House"
-
That is the primary conclusion of a new report out of the
National Intelligence Council -- a government organization
that produces mid-term and long-range thinking for the US
intelligence community.

Titled Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, this
140-page study says emphatically that the “relative decline”
of the US is “inevitable,” but adds that its future role in
the international system is “much harder to project,” and
goes on to say that “the degree to which the US continues to
dominate the international system could vary widely.”

Among the factors that could determine what the US role in
global affairs might be a little less than two decades from
now are whether the US dollar continues to be the world’s
reserve currency, how China handles the transition from a
country of poor workers and peasants to a country with a
large middle-class, and whether the US “will be able to work
with new partners to restructure the international system.”

The study is interesting in that it represents a complete
rejection of the notorious Project for a New American
Century, which was a private Neoconservative blueprint for
long-term US hegemony over the rest of the globe and which
became the driving philosophy underlying the Bush-Cheney
administration’s domestic and foreign policy in the first
decade of this century. The PNAC called for the US to
establish unchallenged global dominance and to do whatever
was necessary to “prevent” any other nation from challenging
that dominance going forward.

The authors of this new study take it as a given that
the heyday of the US is over. As they put it, “The
‘unipolar moment’ is over and Pax Americana -- the era
of American ascendancy in international politics that
began in 1945 -- is fast winding down.” They say,
optimistically, that the US is likely to remain “first
among equals” at least into 2030 “because of its
preeminence across a range of power dimensions and
legacies of its leadership role.” But that’s a far cry
from being able to dictate to the rest of the world.

The
study offers four possible scenarios for the future. In what
it calls the “most plausible worst-case scenario,” the US
would withdraw inward, allowing globalization to “stall.”
While many people in other countries would likely consider
this scenario an optimistic one, not a “worst-case” one,
given the hugely destructive role the US has played over the
decades since its emergence at the end of World War II as
the world’s dominant power, the report’s authors see such a
move towards US isolationism as leading to increased
conflict and instability in the world.

A second scenario they postulate, which they term “fusion”
and describe as the “most plausible best-case scenario,”
would see an increasingly economically dominant and
militarily powerful China joining in an era of cooperation
with the US. Such cooperation, they say, could lead to
solutions to such global challenges as climate change and to
“broader global cooperation.” Again, other countries might
view such a two-state collaboration between the world’s two
biggest economies and militaries as less benign.

A third scenario postulated as less likely would be a
“genie-out-of-the-bottle” world in which growing inequality
leads to explosions in many nations, while climate-change
and population-pressure driven shortages of water, food and
energy, lead to increasing international conflicts, with the
US no longer able to act in the role of “international
policeman.”

Finally, a fourth scenario, which seems almost science
fiction, envisions a weakening of nation states, as new
technologies allow non-state actors, such as mega cities and
shifting coalitions of non-state actors, to become leaders
in dealing with the world’s issues like climate change
international conflict.

With regard to the Middle East, America’s continued
obsession with Iran’s nuclear energy program is on full
display, with the Intelligence Council authors worrying
that “If the Islamic republic maintains power… and is
able to develop nuclear weapons, the Middle East will
face a highly unstable future.” It is an odd
apprehension, given the current degree of instability in
the region -- civil war in Syria and Yemen, public
protests in Bahrain and Egypt, uncontrolled violence in
Libya, continuing violence in Iraq, and of course war in
Afghanistan -- and the fact that at present only Israel
has nuclear weapons, which it adamantly refuses to
submit to international inspection or control -- or even
to acknowledge.

No
one, obviously, can hope to predict with any confidence what
the world will look like in 2030, particularly given the
unprecedented threat posed by catastrophic climate change,
which could see global temperatures even by that year rising
significantly, with disastrous consequences for both coastal
populations and for countries already facing droughts and
water shortages. Even the US, as the intelligence analysts
note, will not escape climate change unscathed, as its drier
regions, notably the southwest and midwest -- both important
crop-growing regions -- face unprecedented droughts. If
other trends continue too -- notably the decline of the
dollar as a global reserve currency, and continued growing
indebtedness of the US -- America could be forced to, as the
authors put it, “withdraw inward.”

The good news is that nowhere in this forward-looking study
is there a scenario proposed in which the US continues on as
the world’s self-designated “cop,” or as the world’s
dominant power.

As we contemplate the profound challenges posed by climate
change and by the world’s exploding population, that at
least is one prediction in the report worth cheering about.

In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)